


Calamity From the Skies

by scarlet_natsume (Scarlet_Natsume)



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Vampire Knight
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Insanity, M/M, Mental Anguish, Multi, Psychological Torture, Supernatural Elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:44:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1580594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Natsume/pseuds/scarlet_natsume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was betrayed. He was tortured. And he was locked in a hollow immortality with nowhere to run as they kept lured him into breaking and into madness. He loved him and he loved her, but he didn't know what's true anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Calamity

* * *

* * *

 

 

He was cold. He felt cold, but his skin felt like it was on fire. His lungs were working double time. He blinked and blinked, but with his vision increasingly blurred, it was difficult. He tried to reach the person in front of him, but it wasn't helping, he couldn't. His right arm felt like pinned under something, he couldn't command it. Trying the left gave same results. He couldn't move.

He was  **numb**.

_Why?_

He wanted to ask. He at least wanted to whisper it.

But, he couldn't.

_Why, Yuuki?_

He stared at the person before him, feel hurt and betrayed.

_Why are you doing this to me, Yuuki? Why?_

" _ **I'm sorry, Zero,"**_

Tears ran down his face.

" _ **Please, understand. I'm pregnant, Zero. Kaname's child. I can't make this child live without her father."**_

Pain. Hurt. He felt hurt. It was a bone-deep hurt that ached and vibrated throughout his very being. Hurt. Hurt.  **Hurt.**  The pain flowed like a raging river through his listless veins, stabbing his heart.

His eyes stung with the coolness of the ice. His lungs wouldn't open as much while his pulse was growing weak.

**Live.**

He wanted to live.

The three words were screaming inside his mind.

He wanted to live. He must live. He didn't want to die.

He must live to  **survive**.

A stabbing feel slammed him hard, before everything around him blackened and threw him into the consciousness that would caging him forever and might be never let him go again.

 

* * *

 

 

> **_“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”_ **
> 
> ― William Blake

 

* * *

 

 

 **Calamity.** No one knows what it actually is. A virus? A curse? Or something else? No one can understand it. All they know is the cause and effect. No one knows the beginning of it.

Calamity has actually been around since ancestor era, no one knows exactly when, they even never knows it exists until it's too late. Calamity lays dormant inside the blood and genes of the pureblood vampires, can be active anytime by a trigger, like a time bomb that could explode whenever.

If there is anything that can describe the Calamity is parasite. The active Calamity is like a cancer, spread slowly and difficult to detect, divers, complex, and only partially understood. A pureblood vampire with an active Calamity, his or her mind and soul will become very unstable. Emotional control, particularly in restraining anger, will faded. They will become insane and psychotic. The body will slowly weaken, brittle, and more susceptible to injury. Furthermore, they will appear to age, their hair first turning silver then white, their skin takes on a grayish hue and little by little large cracks can be observed on their face and neck until it's time their body crumble and they die, slowly, mercilessly, and very painful to the point you want to die. Die painfully.

What is it like to defend your living body from a parasite that could make you insane and kill you very slowly, something that there are no doctors or medicines that could heal you, something that you don't know when it will be active?

I only know three vampires who suffering the Calamity. Shizuka Hio, who after the death of her lover, the Calamity inside her active and made her referred as  _The Mad Blooming Princess_ , the woman who become the source of my suffering, who massacred my family and turned me into a creature that I hated most.

Rido Kuran, I don't know exactly when the Calamity inside him active. All I know is in the middle of the Calamity active process, the man killed his infant nephew, killed his siblings, and created chaos everywhere in order to become the king of the vampires and rule the world.

Kaname Kuran is the one who made the most severe damage. The Calamity inside him active since he lost his first lover, the woman who became "The Parent" for the hunters, but it moved steady and quiet. The pureblood vampire at least knew there was something strange in his body and after the first war he sealed himself in a very long slumber and prevented the Calamity from spreading further and holding control of his body. But after one of his descendants raised him back, the Calamity inside of him was also back. It's not quiet anymore. It's active, alive, and  **raged**. Either because it had contained for so long or because something else, I don't know, but the Calamity inside him was the most damaging. And the beginning was when the war against Rido Kuran, he massacred the Vampire Council, then the climax was when he killed almost every purebloods and slaughtered many other vampires and humans a few years later.

In order to stop Kaname Kuran who had absorbed all of Calamity from the purebloods he killed back then, the survivors, Yuuki and I and every vampires and hunters, were looking for ways and had done everything. Yuuki and I finally found something and so we decided to seal the pureblood.

It hurt, you know. Yuuki and I really love him. Seeing our loved one, the one who loving us back, did all that madness, it hurt. Forced to seal and made our loved one in the state couldn't live or die, it's more than painful.

But it seemed things never happened as expected.

And now here I am, torn between the death and the life. Rejected by death and refuted by life. Trapped within the sealing iceberg, cannot die and cannot live. Locked in a hollow immortality.

It's all because of Yuuki. Yuuki and I almost managed to seal Kaname, when suddenly she pulled out all of Calamity inside him and forcefully insert it into my body and sealed me.

It hurt.

So cold bitter.

I feel numb.

I don't mind being a vessel for the Calamity if that could save Kaname and make him and Yuuki happy. It's a pleasure to be able to sacrifice myself for my loved ones, but what made me livid was she did it without telling me first, not warning me, not discussing it with me, not asking my permission.

It's like a betrayal. And I have already betrayed for many times I felt numb.

And the Calamity doesn't help me at all.

Instead it changed me. It's very difficult to resist their whisper. They whispered, whispered, whispered, and  **whispered**. Haunting me in my dreams. Haunting my mind, my soul, my body. Coaxing me, enticing me, luring me, into breaking.

 **To breaking**. Breaking and into insanity.

Red. It fills my vision. It is everywhere.

Trapped as I was trapped.

It changes me. Mutated me. My hair is longer than my body, my skin is now grayish hue, and I have wings on my back.

Wings.

It's like the Calamity is mocking me.

To have wings when you don't even have freedom.

To have wings when you were trapped like a caged bird.

The chilling of its whisper is how it sounds so warm, but it reminds me of the years of pain, neglect, and grudge.

And when it's haunting me, it makes it so cruel, vicious, ruthless and heartless. Not in sense of hurting my body, but my heart, my mind, and my soul.

It's using  _ **his**_  voice.  _ **He**_ was there, always, right behind me, leaning so that  _ **his**_  lips were against my ear.  _ **He**_  was there, always, whispering in my ear, watching everything from behind me. I could see  _ **him**_  in the corner of my eye, but only in the corner of my eye. _ **He**_  was always there, always. I felt  _ **his**_  hot breath on my ear as  _ **he**_  whispered, whispered, distracting me from my resistance, making me lose my thought as  _ **he**_ laughed, teased, mocked, toyed, but mostly, endlessly, as  _ **he**_  did all of this,  _whispered_.

It's tormenting me by using the Kaname Kuran long before we become lovers.

I terrified by it.

It laughed with his voice. Laughed with his evil laughter. His voice was cold, hard, without mirth, pity, warmth, or humanity.

I felt like want to cry.

Sometimes I felt like to give up, surrender in that whispers.

But I can't.

I shouldn't.

No, that's wrong. I don't want to lose myself to this. I want to stay. To stay. To stay intact. To stop the trickling bits of myself from flowing out. Stay, stay,  **stay**.

_**Don't go.** _

But that is getting harder and harder as the time has passed.

The rational part of me knows I'm on limited time, or rather my mind is. But, if it is true madness, the kind that can't be fixed, only managed… it can be my death. Not a physical one, but Zero Kiryuu will cease to be, under the blood, lunacy, and psychosis. Death and blood, with all the hope and light are gone.

Alone. Abandoned.

I will exist through this moment, and then another, and then another.

Until I don't know anymore if I will be the same when I wake up again.

 

 


	2. Scream And Saved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And everything has begun.

 

 

…And the scraping sound continued.

He don't remember how long the time has passing as his body keeps frozen into static, he has lost count. He stopped existing, an out of body, out of mind.

This is ascension of the purest kind – an awareness of the madness within, the reality around, and the fact that he is both cognizant of it and yet interwoven with it.

The delusions want to be his friend.

The decades of private internal loneliness…

Though he had not been entirely alone.

There are reflections in here. When he stares, he will think many things. Everything is familiar, unchanged. He frowns, it's new day and like usual without sunlight, darkness without stars. Time means nothing because eternity stretches both ways. He doesn't sleep, hasn't sleep. He doesn't know how, but he aware it's a new day and a new year.

Just another day, another moment.

 

* * *

 

> **"Sometimes it's torturous to think of things we can't possibly have."**  
>  ― Aaron B. Powell,  _Doomsday Diaries_

 

* * *

He hears voices. It speaks to him. Sometimes, the voices sound like Kaname. Calm and comforting and heavy, somehow all at once, and it frighten him. Sometimes, it sounds like he does – a mirror image of the level E of himself, whispers and always whispers in his ears. Sometimes it sounds like Yuuki or Ichiru, or sometimes Yagari or Kaien.

He doesn't think these things so much anymore. The voices do not concern him. They are here.

And they are the torturers.

 

* * *

 

There's a scream.

He curls into himself. The woman screams tries to match the pitch. The scream is a buzz and she tries to speak to… he doesn't know, to him maybe? But it's muffled. There's a torture, there's an illusion.

Red. There's vivid red. Everything is red with blood.

He doesn't know what the woman sees. Screams, shriek and shrill, pounded his ears. The woman's chest was bare, ripped under the skin. He can't see the woman clearly, but she seems familiar. She's bleeding out, feeling the more lucid moments of agony.

 

 

Scream.

               Scream.

                              Scream.  

                                              Scream.  

**Scream.**

 

 

She screams as if her heart has been ripped out of her chest. It probably has hurt less.

It's real or the Calamity is just messing with him again?

Blood stained the ice that surrounds him. The world feels hollow and dead and so  _empty_.

 

* * *

 

The days, weeks, months, years, passes with a break in the middle. There's a scent of chemicals. Antibiotics. Penicillin. Flucloxacillin. Alkalis. Caesium. Sianida.

Ah… there's blood again.

He's always been a vampire.

 

* * *

 

He can't even tell how much time is passing anymore.

Early on, when he was first sealed, he had remained fully possessed, but aware of everything. He had not been shoved down into the black, though he expected it anytime. He kept track of every solitary minute just in case it would be his last, but the dark never came. He remained open, raw, aware for days that ran into weeks.

He hardly moves, waiting for the Calamity to decide the next course of action. It never comes. The only thing that has followed was more loss. The power his body once contains ebbed away. The strength once he held weakened.

He coughs, stuttering his shriek midway.

A gasp of precious oxygen finds its way into his body and douses the panic enough for him to think once again, only he wishes it hasn't.

 

* * *

 

He dreams that night. And like usual it's red. Red on walls. Red on his skin. There is red all over the place. He hears screaming. Is it a memory? Or is it a figment of imagination the Calamity insert at him? This is all too familiar. It brings back unwanted memories of darkness. Pain. Blood. Fear. Blueness. Screams. Wanting of death. White. All visions are unclear in his mind.

The dreams torment him. He sees things he has done. Things that happened to him. Things… he doesn't know. None of them are good. His mind will have deteriorated even more now. It's like falling into level E again and again...

again...

and again...

and again...

and again...

and again...

and again...

and again...

and again...

 **and again** …

 

* * *

 

The Calamity prods its tendrils into the back of his caged mind, stirring up older, much more painful fears.

 

_Oh how much he cared._

_The cost was something that was too high for one to endure alone._

_His failures were not so much that they called for this._

_The fear he felt was blacker than sludge and as unsatisfying as eating the tar produced from pollution, rot, and death all in one._

 

Oh, and how he wishes he is that long dead hunter once again, so that he would have something, some defense against the invisible, desperate, powerful force which tortured him so.

The sound cut out again. He has started screaming again. He wishes he still can, but the organs in his chest can't respond.

The same panic flooded in only to be squashed when he can breathe again.

Recoil and back into the black.

 

* * *

 

His eyes flash open, mouth already screws up in horror, head twisting violently from side to side, there's a ripping feel under his collarbones and back out through his chest. There always seems to be blood swelling in his mouth, rising like bile. The torture gets worse and worse and worse and  **worse**. There are no good days. A violent scream of agony ripped from his core as the ripping feel grows hot.

His vision blackening as he screams and screams and screams. His shoulders are on fire. His throat is hoarse, his entire world screaming  _pain_.

He wails as he feels something slowly scraping his flesh and veins, moving its way to the bone. He howls, arching his back and letting loose a string curses.

The pain is horrifying. He writhes, non human noises escaping his blood filled mouth.

 

Another.

  **Another.**

Another.

 

He wails. Wails. Wails. Twisting, ripping, blood spilling.

 

He's tired. God, he's so tired. Tears hot on his cheeks. His head is swimming, pain filling everything, every thought.

His body convulses, his eyes rolling into his head, blood pooling from his mouth.

And it's just another day, another torture.

 

* * *

 

The Calamity whispers a song of  _ **her**_  voice, the fragments and shards that it uses to drive memory under his skin, under his nails. It pounds, pound, pound. It worm poison into him. It sings  _ **her**_  favorite song. It sings  _ **her**_  dying screams. It sings  _ **her**_.

_Her. Her. Her. Her. Her._

_Her. Her. Her. Her._   _ **Her**_.

 _ **She**_ had been a finicky girl and only his and his lover's voice could soothe her. When she cried his name, he would come running.

 

Come running.

Come running.

 

 _ **She**_  sings in colors of black and blood.  _ **She**_  cannot stop crying and it hurts, hurts like blows and he can hear those too. It strikes  _ **her**_  over and over and over and  _ **she**_  chokes and there is wetness in  _ **her**_ voice, there's the gurgling of a pierced lung and a torn throat and  _ **she**_  cries to him.

Zero.

             Zero.

                          Zero.

                                      Zero.

                                                  Zero.

Zero!

_**Please help me!** _

Messy.

It's messy.

Messy. Messy.

 

 

Mess.

                                                 Mess.

                               Mess.

Mess.

 

It has torn  _ **her**_  pretty dress,  _ **her**_  pretty scarves. It has wrapped  _ **her**_  up like a fly in a web and  _ **her**_  arms are spread and  _ **her**_  legs are open.  _ **She**_  claws at _ **her**_  binding as the rest swarm  _ **her**_  and  _ **she**_  cries and  _ **she**_  is beautiful. He loves  _ **her**_. He wants nothing more than to just…

No! He is not a monster! He is not!

He isn't! He isn't! He isn't! He isn't! He isn't! 

 

**He isn't!**

 

He begs and begs and begs and saying it just his imagination, just hallucination from the Calamity.

It laughs. It laughs as  _ **she**_  screams. It laughs and laughs and laughs.  _ **She**_  cries and he wails. And he lies down alone and cold in the dark.

He closes his eyes and breathes and  _ **she**_  screams and  _ **she**_  moans and he can't.

 _ **She**_ is not Yuuki.

He mustn't, he just…

… **want to sleep**.

 

* * *

 

His eyes tight, he struggles against his bonds. One arm slams up. The other follows. A lurch and he's upright. He opens his eyes and the world is back to tinted red again.

Cold. Unforgiving.

Something tugs. Something moves inside him where nothing should be moving for it's just his consciousness. It wrecks his memory. He has no hopes, no dreams or desires or urges.

Broken bones set, severed nerves reconnect. He takes a breath and let the memories and the feelings and the scent and the physical limitation catch up with him again. But with it comes the pain, horrible pain and terrifying realization.

He screams.

 

* * *

 

 _ **He**_ is telling him about stories.  _ **He**_  is standing behind him. Leans on his back.  _ **His**_  breath swept softly behind his ear. He watches  _ **his**_  hands, darkened in the long shadows.

 _ **He**_  is stitching the world together.

He wants to touch  _ **him**_ , to take hold of  _ **his**_  hand.

 _ **He**_ grins suddenly, and he is surprised, because he knows that  _ **he**_  can smile, and chortle, and smirk, but never grin. But yet here  _ **he**_  is, and he falls into  _ **him**_ , as if he is the only one there, which  _ **he**_  is.

"Am I safe, Kaname?" he asks, softly and tiredly, and he means if  _ **he**_  can lift him away from this.

"Yes." _ **He**_ replies, and smiles with the smile of the devil as he envelops him in  _ **his**_  strong arms. He wants to kiss  _ **him**_ , really he does, but he doesn't, instead he stared at  _ **him**_  for a long, long time, until the lines between them simply blur and thicken.

They don't kiss.

 

* * *

 

Pain.

It's hurt.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.  **Pain.**

Hurt. Hurt. Hurt. Hurt. Hurt. Hurt.  **Hurt.**

A scream builds in the back of his throat, eyes dart behind closed lids, and he waits a heartbeat for whatever comes.

Warm, red liquid is splattering the ice wall and his hair and his back.

Something hard and smooth is scrapping against the bone. He gasps, his eyes widening as his hands immediately sought to clench something. What… what is going on?! What is happen?!

Another scream tears from his lips, more chilling than any of the previous cries. It is too much. He cannot take it longer. He can't possibly…!

There is something tearing out of his back.

It's like two limbs grow. Spread, like a pair of wings.

Wings? Really?

He can't look at his back, but he can see something membranous from the corner of his eyes.

Oh, no. Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No!

They're wings! They're really wings!

Clipped wings.

A laughter. An insane laughter burst out from him.

Wings! He has wings!

A pair of wings that cannot fly.

He is a  **monster**.

 

* * *

 

It is  _raged_.

It screams and howls against him. Tear at the walls of his body.

To rips him  **shred**.

Tries to take him down to get out.  **To get out**. It can feel every detail in the pile of flesh that holds it and makes it jailed.

It is trapped.

It howls their rage into the sky.

Need out, it needs out. Need.  **Out**.

It is shrieking its anger against the ice and against the flesh that hold them.

Escape. Escape. Escape. They need out.

 _Get out. Get out. Get out. OUT. OUT._ _**ESCAPE** _ _!_

It hisses, snarls as its rage soars.

_**RELEASE US!** _

 

* * *

 

He is floating.

Life and death, mortality and monstrosity are beyond far behind him now. He can still feel it in his skin, like droplets of water that have yet to dry. It is not an entirely unpleasant sensation, knowing that these words are losing more importance which each fleeting moment. Time has lost its meaning as well. Who would be able to measure time right here, where eternity is now, yesterday kisses tomorrow and seconds never pass. There are no shapes here, no sounds, no colors, no taste.

He can stay here and lose himself in the strange nothingness. Thoughts drip from the confinements of his mind, wrapping around him like silk, soft and without demand. He can pick them up whenever he feels like it; it will not be lost. This way of existence knows no bounds, no limitations. Physical restrictions are gone and the Calamity has left no trace behind, as though it has never existed in the first place.

Or is it?

Slowly, he opens his eyes. Darkness surrounds him, but he can see through it as one would see through…

 

* * *

 

Wet. Thin. Not blood. Cool. Not cold. Soft. His throat is dry. Fabric is pushed to his lips. Gentle, it rubs until it finds the part. A little further and it teases behind his teeth to his tongue. Water. He sucks and sucks and sucks, slow until the fabric is spit. It's taken away and another corner is slotted in its place. He sucks again, harder and it's taken away.

" _ **Hello?"**_

There's a cool pats over his forehead, down his cheeks. The cloth is wiped along his jaw and into the creases of his ears, behind them, at the back of his neck, forward again. It feathers over the dip at his throat and sweeps up his neck to worry his chin. His eyes, next, gentler still as it dabs his lashes and free them to apart.

He feels a peace come over him for the first time since… he doesn't know how long. The voices screeching through his mind grow quiet, no longer did the Calamity dance before his eyes.

It's comforting.

But also a dreadful trap.

" _ **Zero Kiryuu."**_

He hesitates. The voice is unfamiliar to him. It's unusual. The Calamity always using the people he knew. Always. Mercilessly. A frown and he tries to open his eyes. Light. His throat claws bile. Too bright. Too hot.

Too warm.

Golden strands are the first thing he sees, glittering by the light. Everything around him is white. A refreshing scent implodes his nose. Slender arms are holding him firmly while the warm body holding him close, whispering soothing words in his ear.

A woman. The owner of the voice is a woman. A very beautiful woman with the bluest eyes he had never seen before.

"Who are you?" he asks, still laying on… whatever he laid on.

The woman smiles, it's so warm and gentle.  _ **"I am Minerva, the Goddess of Gaia and the Planet itself."**_

He stares at the woman in disbelief. Minerva? The Goddess Minerva? The Calamity goes too far this time. To using the Goddess to torment him more.

" _ **No, Zero Kiryuu. This is not illusion."**_

He can't believe what he is hearing. Not illusion? So, it's real? The Goddess is here with him. Why?

"Why?" he asks, his voice hoarse and quiet.

The woman gently caresses him. He flinches, but he doesn't pull away.  _ **"Zero Kiryuu, you are a righteous. You sacrifice yourself for the sake of all beings on the planet by becomes a vessel for the Calamity. You are exquisite, fascinating, and valorous."**_

He frowns at her said. "I never sacrifice myself. I become a vessel because I have already become it. Yuuki thrust the Calamity into my body forcefully and I have no say to it."

She soothes him with her grace, transferring good feeling and hope into his soul.  _ **"But you accept it. You angry, you were livid, but you still accept it."**_

He laughs, and laughs, and laughs. Full of irony, insanity, and anger. "Of course I accept it! I've already said I have no say to it!"

" _ **And yet, you have not broken."**_

His laugh ceases.

"No, I broke. I let them into my mind. I'm weak, horrible, a coward."

" _ **No, you're not."**_

"How can you say that?!"

" _ **What make the Calamity remains in that iceberg is not the sealing but you and your will to keep everyone safe from it. The Calamity actually can escape anytime, but you make it keeps imprisoned. Your body makes it keeps jailed, your mind keeps it barred, your will keeps it locked, your soul keeps it sealed. It's why the Calamity tortured you so much, it wants to make you submit and break. When you're break, the Calamity can control you and release itself with your body. And what happen five hundred years ago with Kaname Kuran will happen again, but more devastating."**_

His eyes widened. Five hundred years ago? It's been that long?

" _ **Yes, it has been five hundred years since you were sealed. And a lot of things changed in the world of life."**_

He is silent. Five hundred? He feels dizzy with the fact that has thrown to him. Five hundred years inside the ice. Five hundred years of torment he had endured from the Calamity. Five hundred years…

And he is not going to die anytime and it's because the Calamity.

"Wha…" he coughs. "What exactly Calamity is?"

She gazes at him.  _ **"A Parasite."**_

Parasite? The chaos, the war, the slaughter, were just because a  _parasite_?

He blinks slowly. "Parasite?"

" _ **Or rather, a form of the darkest aspects of human nature. It is rage. It is fear. It is greed. It is pride. Whatever negative feelings in humans. The most dangerous from humanity. When they were separated they just a virus, but when they become whole they are another being."**_

"So, are you saying that the Calamity is a being that formed from the worst side of humans?" he asked in disbelief.

" _ **Yes, it is."**_

He rubs his temple, trying to calm the furious force that is trying to drill a hole from inside his head. Parasite? He can't believe it. The Calamity is a parasite?

Damn.

"Then, why were just the pureblood vampires had it? Why not the humans?"

Something brushes against his head and he stiffens, without him noticing. And then something happen, one minute his head is so hurt like there's something tearing his mind the inside out, and next it is gone. Completely and utterly gone and he can think straight again. He feels completely refreshed.

" _ **Do you really want to know?"**_ she asks as she removes her hand from the top of his head.

He blinks his eyes, before nodding slowly.

Minerva's lips quirk at that.  _ **"When the Calamity first appeared, the humans were at their worst. There were sins anywhere. And the worst was when they tried to deny the God of creation."**_

"The God of creation?"

A serene smile tugs on her lips.  _ **"The God of creation. He is our father. The creator of everything, includes us."**_

He falls silent. The God who creates everything includes the other gods? So, the Goddess Minerva is not the one who create the Planet and the organisms in it? He knows about many gods and goddesses from the books he read and from his parents tutoring – they were devotes. But they were convinced that the Goddess Minerva who created everything in the Earth.

Apparently, they are wrong.

"When you said the humans tried to deny the God… what they had done exactly?" he asks hesitantly.

" _ **They tried to make immortal."**_

At the Goddess' answer, he curses. His guess is right. Because of the fear to the death, the humans always tried looking for ways to get a very long life or make them not die. He twitches, that foolishness still exist in his time.

" _ **It was eleven thousand years ago, they had using all means, from research to experiment. And the outcome was the abominations. The supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, and many others, were born. At that time, a human was aware that there's something powerful had been around. He found the Calamity and he split it up and locked the pieces inside the vampires he experimenting."**_

He stops breathe. "And it laid dormant inside their blood, cell, and gen, until something triggered it to active."

" _ **Exactly."**_

The silence that followed is deafening.

" _ **I am going to keep you here,"**_

He blinks in surprise. "Huh?"

" _ **Or rather just your soul as your body is too late to be saved. But a soul without a body is like an apparition, but at the same time not like one. An apparition is a shadow of what it once was in its life. Usually tied to the Planet for a number of different reasons like vengeance or fear of what lies ahead. You are a soul, not dead but not alive, simply a soul with a host that couldn't completely contain it because of the Calamity. I would to save you earlier, but the Calamity inside you prevents me to. It's a threadbare. You are vulnerable and scarred, to save your soul from the Calamity is difficult. One wrong step, your soul will torn into pieces and forever you will never escape from its clutch. One wrong step, the Calamity can make holes in the Planet's barrier and destroys all things on it. One wrong step, it can control your being and release itself from the seal and killed everything."**_

"But, my body…" he says quietly. "Is not my body that has been contaminated by the Calamity would be dangerous for the Planet?"

She giggles.  _ **"Your soul still connected with your body, as long as you're still alive before your body crumbles itself, the Calamity will not escape. That's it, if you want to be here. You will not be disturbed by the Calamity when you are here."**_

He bites inside his lips. Should he accept this? The offer is too tempting. He doesn't want to go back to his body and become a toy for the Calamity again.

"When you said 'here', where is here anyway?" he asks, just realize that not only everything around him is white, but there's nothing here except him and the Goddess.

" _ **It is the Lifestream,"**_

"Lifestream?"

" _ **It is like Limbo. It's the bridge between the life and the death. There are several planes in the Lifestream. And if you accept my offer, I will give this one plane to you for you manage."**_

His eyes widen. "Manage? Like…?" he asks as he rises trying to sit.

" _ **Like you managing your bedroom,"**_  she jokes, releasing her arms from his body.  _ **"You can change the appearance of this plane, I know anyone would get bored if they see white continuously. You just close your eyes and imagine whatever you want in this room and they will appear like virtual reality."**_  A smile tugs on her lips.  _ **"Please, do try."**_

He feels suddenly alone when the Goddess releases him. He blinks and nods mutely. He closes his eyes and trying to imagine something that would be good in this whiteness.

Strangely, the air around him become feels much warmer than before. He opens his eyes slowly, peers across the edge of his eyelids, and he gasped when he see the change around him.

White. Everything is still white, but the ground has covered by many various of white lilies. Spread like a meadow. His nose twitches with the scent of lily floods his nose. He can't describe the sensation that overcome him, he feels stronger and… free, more alive than he had in years.

"Whoa…" he mutters in amazement.

It's an awe-inspiring sight after locked for hundreds years in a glacier.

" _ **Hm… not bad,"**_  the Goddess comments.  _ **"So, do you accept?"**_

He turns his head to the Goddess, a smile spread on his lips. He sees and feels the world around him… so alive. The sensation is stronger than anything he had known before. He loves in here.

And escape from the Calamity clutch for awhile is bonus. A very big, full of pleasure bonus.

The Goddess smiles when she saw his face. She can hear what will he say as his answer.

" _Yes."_

 

 


	3. Rise of the Cetra

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

It was on a cold and snowing night when **_they_** came.

She stares wistfully into the surrounding darkness as she sits on a big tree root in a small clearing of the forest. The night is dark and its cool is lying like a heavy, woolen blanket over the broad-leafed oak-trees.

Once, they had lived peacefully. The vampires and the hunters bound in the peace agreement, and they lived peacefully in coexistence.

But that had been many lifetimes ago, even the peace had come to an end. It began when all of the humans knew about the vampires. It began when they knew about the other supernatural creatures. It began when **fear** had surrounding them.

Chaos ensued. **_They_** came with such large numbers and weapons. The humans.

Unprepared against what tried to kill them, the vampires and the other supernatural creatures had drifted through the world, reeling around in despair and forced loneliness.

Attacked. Killed. Slaughtered. Cornered. Wiped.

Cries. Screams. Shrieks. Tears. Rages. Fears. Horrors.

The supernatural creatures were the superior ones, but the humans won with their numbers who much, much more than them. The stronger ones were fighting for their freedom while the weaker ones were the first to be captured. Many lost their lives. For a long time the war raged on and on. And then it happened.

The hunters were a neutral party at first, they never took any sides as they honored the sacrifice of one of them to end the previous war. But when the older and wiser hunters had died, the younger generations attacked. It seemed the only ones who held them back from join the war were the elders, and when their elders died they didn’t hesitate to attack any supernatural creatures they saw. The war escaped its chain and its hunger unleashed unspeakable horrors. Bloodshed reigned, it was bring its merciless hunger and unspeakable terror on the completely unprepared vampires and other supernatural creatures.

It was hell.

The supernatural creatures were dwindling, and now they, the only few hundreds of them who survived, had cornered into hiding in a large dark forest as they prepared themselves for the next attack.

And this is where she is, had lost her parents and forced to leave her home with her sister and uncles and aunts, sits stand guard in their sanctuary.

The air is filled with a mixture of different fragrances and from the other side of the clearing, she hears the continuous trilling of numerous crickets, a sound she found slightly annoying, though she couldn’t do anything against it.

She doesn’t know what she should do if this idea failed. She knows for sure they never would be strong enough to fight when the humans attacked next. But she cannot stop here. Her people depend on her, and she, as their alpha and leader, cannot fail them.

She cannot fail her late parents, uncles, aunts, friends.

She cannot fail the one who she had named after.

A faint rustle in the tress caught her attention. The wind brings the smell of a familiar person to her nose. Soft footsteps approach her from behind, she nearly sighs in relief. Her lonely guard is finally over.

“Is there any threat coming here, my Queen?”

A deep voice asks gently as the howling of the wind rushing across the clearing. She half turns, so that the person who asked her can see only part of her face. She raises her right hand in one slow, perfectly controlled motion, beckons the man with an outstretched index finger, before she took the bowl of warm blood the man offers to her.

“I’ve already told you to not call me that, Uncle Takuma,” she said before she took a sip the blood.

Takuma Ichijou chuckles while he moves to sit beside the brunette girl. “Well, you are our queen and leader.”

“Still, I don’t like to be called as such by my own godfather,” she exclaims, putting the bowl on the ground.

The blonde vampire just smiles, he throwing his cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with his heel.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said, glancing at the cigarette on the ground.

“I smoke,” Takuma said while pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “I just never do it in front of other people.” He then offers her the opened pack. “Here?”

She takes a cigar out of the pack. “Thanks,” she says as she lights it with the lighter he have and clamps her mouth around the filtered end of the cigarette. “So, how is it going?”

“They’re ready for you. Everything is set, we just need your order.”

She sighs raggedly, running a hand absently through her dark brown hair. Takuma watches her sadly, she is still young but she has to bear the burden as a leader. He will be happy to replace his goddaughter to lead, but his status as a level B vampire doesn’t allow him.

“You’re very similar to him, you know,” he says wistfully as a smile tugs on his lips.

“Who?”

“Your father.”

The cigar crackles as she inhales it. “Of course I am. He is my father,” she says with half-sarcastic tone.

“And your snarky but stoic trait is the same as _him_.”

She blinks. “I never heard my father snarky.”

Takuma chuckles. “No, not your father. _Him._ ”

“Who?”

“ _The sleeping beauty_.”

Her eyes widen as she gapes a little at her uncle. “Him?”

He smiles, his hand reaches out to comb her long curly hair. “It’s funny, you know. You got your physique and power from your father but you didn’t get anything from your mother, instead your character is similar as _him,_ the one who had you named after.” He lets her hair go. “It’s like you’re not your father’s and mother’s child, but your father’s and _that_ _person’s_.”

She sighs. “I assure you I’m my father’s and mother’s child. I was born with Kanae from our mother’s womb.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I said it’s funny.”

She flips her cigarette around so she can tap the bit of ash off the end. She leans his back on the trunk, resting her forearms on her knee. She takes another drag, and exhaling the smoke as she tries to banish the memory of that horrible night. Well, it’s so much better, she thinks, to pretend that everything had gone the way she hoped.

“This is our last chance, hm?” Takuma says, breaking the silence as he pulls the last cigarette out of the pack.

“Hm, hm,” she agrees. “We hit them with everything we’ve got. We’re buying time until the spell works.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah, the Goddess herself said so.”

The green eyed man chuckles at that. “The Goddess… I still have trouble believing that Kanae can talk with the Goddess.”

“Well, better believe her. We all depend on her.”

She throws the cigarette to the ground and steps on it, before she turns around and leave. She will destroy the human soldiers that attack them. She will buy time for her sister’s spell working on them, and they all will get the peace they are entitled to receive.

She will make sure of it.

After all, she is _zero_. She is the choice. She can become the _beginning_ or the _nothing_.

And she is choosing now.

She is not going to fail. In the name of the Goddess Minerva, she vows to bring the peace and freedom for her people.

 

* * *

 

 

 

> _**“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.”** _
> 
> ― Robert A. Heinlein
> 
>  

* * *

She knows she isn’t dreaming… dreams don’t hurt, not like this. Each time her body shifts, it sends a line of solid lightning running through her back, amplifying a countless number of tiny aches in the rest of her body.

No, this can’t be a dream. But then, why the moment of her parents’ death cruelly running in front her eyes? Why is everything she saw so clear?

A murmur, filtering through the haze to her, calm, so sure, and soothing. Trees, the blinding sun from behind their slight shadows, and all shifting and shifting.

She quivers as the illusion shattered. All the secret, inner places in her heart, sown with salt and abandoned so long ago, stir, caressed by a cool, gentle breeze.

The world around her is stirring with new fury when she wakes up, it all seems even further away, just sensation of swift motion. The wind against her skin, and loud cries, flashes of light and darkness, but so distant.

 

* * *

 

It is always the same. Always the same dull ache in her shoulder. Always the same blank feeling in her chest.

It is for the sake and the safety of her people, the ones who depend on her. The knowledge doesn’t help or hinder her nightmares. Doesn’t soothe that empty void in her soul.

She hates what she do, she hates war, but if she doesn’t do this, the people she has been protecting will die.

Sometimes she thought it might be better she let them die, at least they will never suffer anymore.

She used to think maybe, if they keep fight and fight, the humans will give up and let them be in their sanctuary.

She knows better now. The humans are no longer the same as they used to. There will not be a peace agreement, just annihilate.

There is nothing fresh or inviting about the morning. It clung like the stench of rot, overpowering every other scent, and the dew congealed in an oily film over the plastic tarps, the metal bars, a slime over the mechanics of war.

“Ma'am?”

There is no answer to his query, but the man hasn’t honestly expected one. He has known the girl… no, the _woman_ in front of him longer than anyone else in his race, it is still hard to interrupt her and calling attention to himself still brings fear.

“My Queen? We’re ready.”

She turns and picks up the Artemis, a keepsake from her late mother, feeling her hand and arm muscle ache in terrible recognition, as if she has never put it down. She walks over her flying motorcycle, and jumps into the saddle with an ease bred of familiarity.

Queen Zerona Kuran, the leader of all supernatural creatures, looks into first rays of the morning sun, and leads her troops to battle against the eastern wing of the human army. It is the middle of the one hundred year since the war began, in what has been quietly, unceremoniously dubbed the Century War.

 

* * *

 

Bright sunlight washes over the rocky plains, as the wind sweeps lightly across the earth. A few minutes passed, the sky is blackening with something long shape falling toward them from the sky. They are silent, watching the object’s descent, transfixed.

That something falls right to the invisible shield dome and exploded.

 _‘So, it’s come to this.’_ Zerona thinks grimly as she stares at the barren ground in front of her, watching the ensuing carnage that will coming.

Untold atomic missiles are raining from the sky, break the first layer of shield dome, bombarding the east gate of the sanctuary. But that is only the beginning. Those… _weapons_ the enemies carry are cutting their way through their soldiers, overwhelming even their best practitioners of conjuration with sheer numbers.

The sky has turned grey, smoke is rising from innumerable craters, structures collapse as the atomic missiles indiscriminately smash into them and exploded. Blood flows freely, the terrified population fleeing from the enemy, their scream cutting through the air.

Dozens lay dead, and untold more will follow.

 _‘Those bastards…’_ she grits her teeth in fury.

“Everyone!!” she yelled, echoing the forest with her strong voice. “We will keep fighting!! Don’t let them get into our sanctuary!! Use the strategies we had planned, and make sure to not leave any of them alive before the spell works!!”

She draws a deep breath and shouted as loud as she could. “FOR OUR FUTURE!!”

And the forest vibrates by their cries of determination. All of them brace themselves as the first wave of human soldiers launches themselves to attack. Zerona turns the Artemis into its true form and brings it about in a fast, upward-slanting horizontal arc as a couple of the first human soldiers leap at her, swinging it with both hands, carving the oncoming tanks neatly in half as she flying to evade their attack. Then, bringing the scythe back to the right with a quick one-handed strike, she bats away another one who ready to shoot her with missiles.

She watches her soldiers slash away with their sword, firing wildly the guns or bomb or other weapons. She doggedly holds her ground in spite of the sheer number of enemies rushing her side, keeping the attacking enemies at bay with carefully timed swings, slicing through any unfortunate soldiers or tanks that ventured close to her.

She curses when she sees many her soldiers have fallen. She pushes five enemies who leapt at her and slicing upwards with her Artemis as she spun on the ground, cutting the enemies’ heads clean off.

She just makes to get up when she spots something from the sky. She gasps. It is atomic missiles again, with a dreaded number, and they are charging toward them.

“Everyone, duck and shield!!” she shouts, pushing several her soldiers nearby down to the floor, covering them as best she could with her shield magic.

The loud sound of explosions is so deafening. There are scream and bloody limbs have thrown.

More of her soldiers are dead.

 _'Fuck this!’_ she growl as she drawing herself to her feet. She brandishes her scythe in her right hand, ready to fend off anymore the attackers headed her way.

Zerona bites inside her mouth as she glances at where her sister is. _‘If only we have more time…’_ she thinks angrily, turning her attention back toward the enemies in front of her. _‘Damn them…’_ she curses inwardly, slashing her Artemis.

 

* * *

 

Organizing the defense is sickeningly easy. Fifty soldiers are under his command, all scramble to put up any barrier they can with whatever rubble they could gather. Hushed, panicked murmurs rise and fall like waves in a growing storm as the ground starts to tremble harder and harder with the movements of the approaching enemy.

Senri Shiki maneuvers his men quickly as he watches the enemies surge toward them. The ground shudder harder underneath his feet as the two large cannons are slowly roll into place, soldiers shouting and cursing as they awkwardly aim the massive weapons to the enemies. He scrunches, the war is a nightmare for his sharp smelling sense. The thick, sharp tang of metal lay heavy in the air, nearly making him choke as the enormous cannon rolled by.

Over the noise of the moving weapons, and the shouts and cries of preparing soldiers, Senri hears a yell from his side, and turns to see one of his men comes with an alarm look on his face.

“THEY’RE COMING!! THE ENEMIES IN THE BASE AND THERE’S HUNDRED OF THEM!!”

The soldier is yelling the warning at the top of his lungs to anyone who would listen. Senri curses loudly when he heard that. Damn it, they’re come too fast! He jumps onto his flying motorcycle with a radio, and shouts as he possibly could.

“EMPTY THE BASE!! REPEAT, EMPTY THE BASE NOW AND EVACUATE TO THE SHOUTERN WING!!”

He doesn’t wait to see the soldiers do what they were ordered as he’s gone. He flies to a big machine inside one of the rooms in the base. He pushes the switch, and his fingers deftly begin to run on the hologram keyboard. A voice is heard from the machine before a digital clock has shown on the surface.

He smirks. Alright, it’s time to make Hanabi!

 

* * *

 

A big explosion echoes through the sanctuary, making the ground and the buildings tremble with the sound like there’s an earthquake. The people screams in surprise and fright when they heard that, in unison turning their head toward where the sound from; the western wing.

It takes a long, long time for Hanabusa Aido to calm down his heart. Damn, who’s the crazy fuck who makes that explosion?! His ears are ringing!

It’s a bit difficult to treats anyone with one eye blind, but he manages as he got the experience from the wars – the previous war (when his late King infected by Calamity) and this war. He tries to not wince as a strong smell of blood from the new patient flooded his nose. There had been another more harder and uglier battle for sure, because the wounds on the body are too severe.

His heart sinks when, despite whatever he has done to heal him, the soldier still died.

He pushes the guilty feeling far back away as he stood and kneels at the next patient’s side, a female soldier, carefully checking for a pulse. It doesn’t take long, for that beat to push out against his hand, but it’s sluggish, very weak.

Blue eyes widen in surprise as he moves his hand up to back of her head, his fingertips brush carefully against her head and found a bloody knot in it. He winces in sympathy.

 _'Concussion…’_ he examines further, and caught sight of another injuries. _‘Ribs cracked. Broken leg. Sprained wrist. But at least the wounds are not that severe.’_

“Third and seventh, prepare to cut over to the right and run down… straight through. We’ll keep them occupied here, they’ll never see you coming.”

Veins popped on Hanabusa’s forehead as he bandaging the leg of his patient. “Could you take your commanding to another place?! This is an infirmary, not the soldier base!! Damn you, Shiki!!”

The maroon haired man turns his head toward his old friend. “But the base have already attacked,” he says stoically.

“And how did that happen?” Hanabusa grunts, feeling unnerved.

“Just do. And I’ve already detonated and burned the base to the ground with the enemies in it anyway.”

Hanabusa instantly turns his head toward the maroon haired. “SO, IT WAS YOU WHO MAKE THAT BLASTED EXPLOSION?!!” he screeches loudly.

Senri just stuffs his index fingers into his ears.

Hanabusa takes a very deep breath, trying to calm himself. It’s useless to annoyed with this little thing when he have the war to worry about. He brings his attention back to his patients, continuing his task that has paused.

The blonde cut a look over, quickly, to see one of the soldiers tightening his own grip on a rather large weapon. He is nervous. Hanabusa observes silently. Damn it, this is not time to be nervous! But he can understand the soldier’s feeling as he also had been in his position long ago. Moreover with the stress and need to sleep can make anyone unnerved.

The battle, the war is already stretching beyond normal.

 

* * *

 

Luka Cross, a black haired dhampir, watches the trees around him burn, choking on the smoke and the screams of those who died trying to defend their sanctuary, diving into the enemy soldiers to tear at them with teeth and claws and weapon and magic, and falling to the armored humans, pierced by sword and spear and gun and laser and whatever weapons they have.

The war maybe not in their favor, but for the sake of the people he is protecting, he will continue to fight.

He would like to follow his queen and fight at the front line, but Queen Zerona ordered him to guard and make a shield for her sister, their priestess, Kanae Kuran.

A vampire as a priestess… it’s like a bad joke. But the fact Kanae could communicate with the Goddess is a wonder itself.

He glances at his back where Kanae kneeling in praying position on a magic circle. Grimacing, he traces the deep craving lines with his eyes, it’s Celtic and there are several series of symbols he doesn’t know in that circle. She silently praying, he blinks when he watches her taking the small knife beside her. He resists the urge to slap the knife from her hand as she slices her wrist and stretching her arm out to let the blood flow. She murmurs words to activate the spell, the blood pouring into the engraving letters and symbols in the magic circle.

Nothing happens. Luka waits while Kanae has stopped murmuring incantation. He waits for what feels like at least an hour, just holding his breath.

Damn it, if this fails they all will be killed, or worst, annihilated.

He about ready to spit in disgust and go through a whole new frenzy tantrums by slaughters the enemies, when he notices a small movement from the corner of his eye. Ever so slowly, the blood moved like being drawn to a magnet. The engraving symbols on the floor glow one by one, the blood attaching itself to the carved letters.

He can’t contain his smile. Before long, the symbols are glowing completely.   

 

* * *

 

Takuma has fought next to Zerona for much of the beginning of the battle. Although he has been saw it many times, it is still an amazing thing to see, Zerona casting spells almost simultaneously as she fought, her technique tighter and faster than anything he has ever been witness to, she wielding her scythe with precise, incredible skill, slicing through the enemies before they have prepared the barest of defense.

 _‘Well, she is our queen and leader after all,’_ he thinks proudly.

He steadies himself, tensing slightly as the spears from the enemies begin to split, once, then again, dividing into a dozen equally long sharp points that swayed, a few fractions of an inch. He turns his blade, just slightly, in preparation for the attack, waiting for the spears to start their descent.

Without hesitation, he charges toward the enemies again. He moves with impossible swiftness, swinging his sword with one-handed stroke.

He fights, and fight, until his coat is stiff with drying blood and his shoulders aches from slicing down and tearing away what seemed like hundreds fleshes, looking up to see wave after wave of attackers still coming, as if all his struggle has barely made a dent.

Death makes its way across the battlefield, choosing here and there, both enemy and ally alike. The battle rages, long into the night.

Suddenly, he saw the enemies have retreated.

The ground has been a gauntlet, a trial by the worst kind of fire. One hour pass on the open plain, then two, with no sign of attack, and barely a glimpse of any the enemy’s troops. The soldier breathe a collective sigh of relief, quietly start recuperating, regaining what strength they could.

They just lowered their weapons and yelling in victory, when something circular raining from the sky, causing the ground to tremble and a small explosion of dirt to erupt from the ground.

Something slowly rises from the crater.

Black retractiles slither up from the gaping maw as the smoke clears away. Massive figures draw itself up from the pit, standing towering above the bewildered supernatural soldiers. The beings are roughly in conical in shape, with thin torso and elongated face that standing well out from the iron body.

They are robots.

Takuma watches in horror as one of the robots lashing its tentacle-like arms around his soldier, sinking into his flesh with the hooks embedded in its epidermis, then in one swift, effortless motion, tears the soldier body apart. Blood showers across his and other soldiers’ faces, his heart pounding in his chest like crazy. He can’t breathe, much less speak.

And there are only two words that come into his mind.

_‘Holy shit…’_

 

* * *

 

Darting out into the cool air of mezzanine, Luka wastes no time in finding the stairs, running further and further up, making his way through the maze-like foundations of the sanctuary, following the sound of gunfire, until he reaches the tunnel leading to the eastern gate.

A heated battle is taking place in the gate between their soldier and some unseen enemy. He sees them slashing and firing away wildly, turning every which way to keep up with some unfathomable, shadowy shapes.

Then he sees it.

The creatures – or robots? – attacking them are nothing like what he had seen before. They possess four vaguely limb-like appendices, two of which serve as rudimentary legs which to crawl, while the others formed crude scythe arms. The robots – he decided they’re robots – have elongated necks, with pointed yellow eyes and masks whose vertically-slit mouths formed sadistic “grins” on their faces.

They’re creepy.

And one of them is creeping up on Zerona, unseen, poising to strike.

Without stopping, he runs up to them as fast as he possibly could, the katana legacy of his father instantly in his hand, leaping up off one of the stone slabs littering the ground. In one swift, unbroken motion, he spins around, slicing downward arc, cutting a robot in half in mid air, just as it leapt up to attack. Zerona and Takuma – who fighting beside her – turns just in time to see the robot’s remains fall to the ground on either side of them.

“What the fucking hell are these things?!” Luka freaks out as he joining the others in their fight.

“I’m busy! Don’t ask me!” one of the ally soldiers replies. “Though, nice of you to join us.”

Charging forward, Luka rams his sword down the throat of those… those unidentified robots, twisting the large beast off its feet as he turns his blade upside down, dislodging it again, its edges cutting the robot open from the inside as it slides back out.

“How is it going, Luka?!” Zerona asks as she slashes away the robot’s neck with her scythe.

“She’s ready! The spell will working just in a few minutes!” Luka answers, slicing through the back of the beast’s head. He jumps while the robot faltering momentarily, however the blow has not been enough to kill it.

Zerona and Takuma nod at each other, they push the enemies who attacked them and killed them, before their attention diverted to their soldiers. “WE RETREAT!!” they shout in unison, making the ally soldiers pause for a moment. “GO TO THE SANCTUARY, NOW!!”

“Go! Go! Go!” Luka yells as he evacuates the soldiers. “Bring back the injured with you!!”

The battle rages, and ebbs, and rages again, as they fight for every inch of they have to run back to the sanctuary. Takuma, Luka, and other commanders, push their troops into the gate while hold the enemies at bay. One of the commanders pulls out a radio, announcing to other generals, commanders, and soldiers at the other gates that it’s time to retreat into sanctuary.   

Zerona’s eyes gleams red, a surge of power encircles her. A quake roars around the enemies on the ground, destroying them. She’s panting as she looks up… and up… and up… her vision barely able to follow the mass of writhing figures who preparing to strike.

Oh my Goddess… there is still so many…? And they’re unidentified flying objects as well.

The man standing next to Takuma goes down too quickly to even cry out, his head bitten off in a vicious rending motion that takes several strips of skin along his chest and back with it, the lower half of his body disappearing in a splash of red. The blond general turns swiftly, only feeling the rush of air as the new beast moves in for its next kill, bringing his sword up out of pure instinct. He hears the scrape of steel against the creature's long incisors, the impact rattling through his entire body, the increasing pressure against the blade quickly becoming more than he could bear.

A sharp explosion in his shoulder and Takuma drops with a cry of pain, sword falling from a now useless hand. _‘Shit!!’_ he cries inside, and he looks up in horror as the monster robot arched backward, before moving in for the kill.

A flash of light, and it was gone, not even leaving a trail of remains behind him, or a few droplets oil thrown through the air with the impact. It had vanished, with one sweep of a katana from the black haired dhampir.

“Takuma!” Luka rushes to his friend’s side and pulling him back up. He can see the blood leaking through the blonde’s uniform. Shit, his arm isn’t gone, is it?

Zerona, who saw what was just happened, grits her teeth. She closes her eyes, gathering all her last strength, and using telekinetic to throw the rest of her soldiers into the sanctuary.

Takuma’s eyes widen as he feels his body begins floating. He looks down, find Zerona still in the middle of the enemies’ troop.

Oh, no. Don’t say she will sacrifice herself for their soldier could get back to the sanctuary safely.

He tries to stretch his hand, trying to reach his queen, but it wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t move?

Damn it!!

He gasps in heavy breath. He struggles and struggles and struggles, but his arm still won’t move. He groans as hot pain tore through him in sickening wave, rewarding him for his effort. He sees two soldiers float near Zerona and shouts. “Eri, Rai, grab the Queen with you!! Quickly!!”

The two soldiers snapped their head in understanding and quickly fight their way to their queen, they stretch their hand together to grab her as a surge of power dragging them toward the sanctuary. 

And large blasts echoed the forest.

The whole area is shroud in silence for time being. Through the silence, the supernatural soldiers begin to hear a low hissing sound, emanating from above.

Then they looks up…

…to see a chilling sight. There’s a magic dome encompass around the sanctuary, the enemies – humans and robots – sizzling like they are exposed to radioactive when they rammed themselves onto the dome before they exploded one by one.

The ally soldiers lower their weapons, in awed silence. They are simultaneously turning their head to their leader, panting and looks feral while her body glowing with a thin black light, she is leaning on one of her soldiers for support. “Begone,” she orders.

With that, the last of the enemy troops melt and dissipate into a thin vapor of ashes.

Zerona is breathing heavily as the glow on her body and her eyes slowly disappear. She collapses, and is being helped to sit by the soldier beside her.

Death comes to many that day, but not for Zerona it seems. The sensation was not a full death, but more of a creeping dread that slowly stifled all the joy inside her.  It was a sense of something beautiful and vital ending far too soon.  She is laying exhausted on the floor, oblivious to the soldiers’ cries of victory or agony, or the fire of the cannons behind them, supporting them. It gets quiet, and she assumed it is approaching dawn, but then there’s first light appears in the sky.

A large pillar light shines brightly in the darkness of the night, encircles them and surrounding the sanctuary.

She lets out a wide grin, laughing hard and whooping to the sky.

They have won. They will live in peace and free.

There will be no supernatural creatures anymore.

Instead, stand in their place, living the creatures called Cetra.

 

 


	4. The Life in the Lifestream

* * *

* * *

 

 

He likes to sit near his brother’s gravestone and just watch. Watch for the people in the life through the reflection of small lake that the Goddess made for him. Watch some people stranded in _his_ lifestream plane and help them to go to the afterlife in peace. One touch of his fingers and he removed any pain, any ailment. It’s a small price for him to have everything he has now; to help the people who come to his plane passing the lifestream safely.

He breathes in relief as he sees what was going on in the world of life. The war has finally stopped. He has been watching for years now, since he found them. The pieces of Kuran’s legacy. He was very surprised when he learned that one of the children named after him. He doesn’t know if Yuuki or Kaname who did it, but he felt honored to have a child named after him.

Though… the child’s character is too familiar for him it made him agitated.

**_“Hm, you are getting more and more creative as the time passed, Zero. That ruins in the middle of lily valley is a new addition.”_ **

He half turns and sees the Goddess walks over him with her gold glory.

**_“How are you today, Zero? Is there anything new for you today_**?” she asks with her usual friendly voice.

He shrugs and back to his _kuran watching_. “Same old, same old.”

She giggles with his answer. She likes this familiarity. It’s been a long time since the last time she could talk with someone casually, and when she become the Goddess of Gaia, she never had someone to talk with.

“Minerva,” he calls, a soft smile tugs on his lips. “I’m very grateful to you for saving them. I wanted to do something for them, but my condition doesn’t allow me.”

**_“You don’t need to thank me. I do this for my need and selfishness.”_ **

“But still, thank you,” he says. “Though, you did it because you need more people to working for you.”

Minerva stares at him in surprise. **_“How do you figure it out?”_**

He raises his eyebrow. “You turned them into a human race that can hear your voice and have a bit of your power. What do you think I would think?”

 She pouts at him. **_“Is there something you don’t know?”_**

“Well, there’s one thing that I don’t know. What’s your purpose?”

Minerva doesn’t answer, she just staring down the lake, running a hand through the ripple of its water.

Zero shrugs as he leans his back to the gravestone. “How’s Ichiru?” he asks, changing the topic.

She turns at him. **_“He is fine. The Calamity did not actually touch him as its target is only you, he can depart to the afterlife anytime. Well, after he wakes up, of course.”_**

He let out a sigh he doesn’t know he was holding as his fingers running through his hair. “Oh, thank god.”

He didn’t know Ichiru’s soul trapped within Zero’s body after his death. He usually thought his brother was just a hallucination when he appears in his mind. To think that his brother always with him since _the beginning_. The time he was knew there were two souls in his body and the soul was his brother’s, he begged to the Goddess to save Ichiru and let him depart to the afterlife.

Silence falls in the plane for a moment. Zero watches Zerona leading her people, through the lake with a serene face. The Calamity is still trying to get him, but with him in the lifestream made them unable to reach him. But it doesn’t mean his body is fine. He once saw his body via the lake and cringed at the state of it – still until now. He almost couldn’t recognize it. His clothes was gone, the body is so slender it could mistaken as a woman, there’s something like burn marks on his chest and likely will have another limb emerge from it.

He sighs, he really become an abomination. A monster.

**_“They called you, you know.”_ **

The Goddess’ voice makes him turned and he looks at her in confusion. “Who? Ichiru?” he asks.

**_“Kaname Kuran and Yuuki Kuran.”_ **

Zero feels his heart has stopped.

**_“They apologize for forcing you to become a vessel for Calamity. Kaname Kuran is still angry at his wife’s deed, but he could not do anything but try to forgive her. Yuuki Kuran is drowning in guilt, she never forgives herself for what she had done to you. They would love to apologize to you in person, but they cannot come here. Once the soul had departed to afterlife, he or she cannot come back to lifestream.”_ **

He clenches his fist, hurt and pain are reflected on his face. He misses them. Oh, God, he misses them so much. He misses his touch. He misses her kisses. He misses…

The touch on his hand cuts his thought. He looks up and sees the Goddess gives him a soft look.

**_“She doesn’t know, Zero. I assure you she doesn’t know the Calamity would torture you. She thought the Calamity would lay dormant, like when Kaname Kuran in his long slumber, after it sealed and let you sleep in peace. She was crying when I told them about your being, and countless times she apologized. She does not expect your forgiveness, if you feel not want to forgive her.”_ **

Tears are slowly running down his face. He bites inside his mouth to stifle the sobs that would come out his throat. His being is trembles as the Goddess encircles him in her embrace, gentle hands running through his hair, soothing him, wrapping him in a comforting feeling that washed over him.

 

* * *

 

> _**“If you don't know what to do, do something, and if you know, don't do something.”** _
> 
> ― Norbert Harm

 

* * *

 

He dreams.

It is the most beautiful dream he ever have since Shizuka Hio turned him. He has his face pressed close to bare, smooth skin, nestled between a pair of powerful shoulder blades, arms wraps tightly around a warm body that has relaxed against his own.

The world is still, silent, but he can’t help tightening his grip slightly, unsure of why it almost seems wrong, this peace, this happiness… he murmurs softly in sudden unease.

A rumble of laughter pulses his face, and his grip loosens as the figure turns to face him, drawing him into an embrace of its own, murmuring a few words he doesn’t quite have the strength to reach for, but he knows he is safe, hold in the swell of that warm, peaceful air.

He gives up to the touch, fingers carefully tracing the dips and curves of the muscle in his arms, there light kisses against his brow, along the curve of his neck. He smiles in content and happy when he feels those lips against his own, pleasure thrumming his being as skin pressed against skin, or the silk under him, brings him to heaven he never knows. Drifting and drifting…

Zero blinks, looking up absently at nothing but whiteness, wondering why he was wake up. He sighs, closing his still-aching eyes, too sleepy to care, smiling as he burying his face in the flower bed under him. It has been a long, long time since he has been so comfortable, the world around him warm and yielding.

He barely has the chance to move, pushing himself up, when suddenly there’s a thud is heard. He sighs for second time in a few minutes as he stretches out fully.

Here they go, the new stranded souls he should guide to the afterlife.

Well, it’s time to work.

 

* * *

 

He is watching them again. He props himself up on his elbow as he gazes toward the reflection of lake. They all look happy, free, and content. The Cetra, the people who can hear the Planet, and unlock the Planet. He still doesn’t know the Goddess’ purpose turned the supernatural creatures into the Cetra, but it must be for something big.

He sighs. The watching is more and more difficult as the time passed as he must look at two lives in different places. Zerona had gone back to Japan, where her home was before the war, and took a half of her people with her, while Kanae and a half others stayed at the Sanctuary.

Damn it, why don’t they just keep together and make it easy for him to keep an eye on them?

He yawns, tucking strands of his very long hair behind his ear, smiling as he watches the Cetra in the Sanctuary busy with the preparation of wedding. She is getting married, his smile widen, Kanae Kuran is getting married and with a Cetra from Estheim family. He, at first, frowned when he learned that Kanae would get married, and planned to propose a prank to the groom. But after he’s watching the groom for awhile, he approved him. After all, the groom is a kind-hearted and always treats Kanae like a queen.

He watches Kanae walking with her future husband, and the love he sees there threatens to take her breath away. This is why he approved them, the love they have makes everything around them looks dull. It’s so bright and pure, and Zero knows that they would be together until death does them apart.

He is happy for them. His smile slowly fades from his face. He wants to be there. He wants to attend the wedding of the woman he considers a daughter he never has.

But, of course he never could.

 

* * *

 

Finding a kid in this plane is a strange experience, for one because this is _lifestream_ and if this kid in front of him is here, that’s mean the kid is already dead. He stretches his hand to the sleeping kid, feels reluctant to touch her. The kid looks like five years of age, for a kid this young to be here, it’s very sad.

The kid scrunches her face, he can see her eyes darted behind the eyelashes, the sign that she is going to wake up.

And black eyes as night are greeting him.

Long moment passes in which they both simply stare, one at the other, in silence. Then Zero swallows, licks at dry lips, finds and forces past them the voice that has not been needed in so long. It’s hoarse, rings loud and strange in his ears.

“Hello?” he greets softly.

The girl is tipping her head, her hair shifted like fragile tendrils of fog in the morning breeze. “Hi,” she says softly.

He lets a small smile shown on his lips. “I’m Zero. What’s your name?”

The girl is looking at him for a moment, before she answered. “Lia.”

He reaches her face, stroking her cheek gently as she nuzzling against his palm. “Tell me what you cherish most. What makes you feel happy?”

A sad look is seen on her face. “Mommy.”

He pulls her closer to his laps while his fingers running through her hair. “And where is your mommy?”

She grips his shirt slightly. “Papa said she is dead.”

“And your papa?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. He lock me in my room and never come back.”

Zero’s breath caught. So, her father left her starved and alone in her room until her death? He grimaces with the thought. “Do you want to see your mommy again?”

Her eyes brighten as she nods.

Zero gazes at her gently, his hand moving to cover her eyes. “Close your eyes, and imagine your mommy come to pick you up. Could you do that?” He feels the girl nodding as her answer. “Imagine she come with a gentle smile that she always showed at you. And you will run to her and she will hug you and kiss you.”

Zero sees green light slowly engulfed the girl. She floats as many separate bands of green-white fluid flowing around her body. Her record has been came over him; her memories, emotions, and knowledge. And his heart sinks when he watches her had been beaten by her own father in her memories. Her image fades away, her left hand begins to disappeared.

Just before she flies into the afterlife, he sees it.

He watches green particles make their way towards her and huddle together on her as if they have a will of their own. He sees her smiling widely, before dispersing into light. Her faint, content voice could be heard.

“Mommy…”

And so, Zero smiles in relief as she disappeared completely.

 

* * *

 

Always, there are the voices.

Indeed, the Calamity can’t get him, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t try. The voices are sometimes dull and buzzing, other times they loud and howling. After a time, there has come silence, and in silence, contemplation and realization. And so he has chosen to sleep, to close his eyes, and seek out dreams of happier days, to lose himself within them.

Still, from time to time, the lucid dream will be penetrated by the voices. They move on around him, about him, above him.

Illusion. Delusions. Madness.

Numbness. For a moment, there is nothing. Then the shock set in, and with it, the pain, and the rage.

And he wakes up with scream choked in his throat.

 

* * *

 

He tries to change the whiteness around him become black.

He can make a castle. He can make the white lilies turn into red roses. He can make ornament gates. Heck, he can make Cross Academy appears in here.

But it seems he can’t make the whiteness turn into the darkness of night.

He doesn’t mind it. With the whiteness around him, he can tell which reality and which illusion from Calamity.

He tries to make something else. Illusion of humans. But he can’t make it too. It seems he can’t make living things appears here, except for the plants.

Sometimes he gets lonely. Alone in the whiteness.

 

* * *

 

If it’s not the Goddess Minerva, it’s the Calamity, or the souls he guided.

There is a time when he didn’t care at all, too busy watching those lived on the world of life, become colorless for him as he guide the stranded ones to hereafter. And there is a time he is too broken to care or to mourn its loss, to wonder what it looks like as it awakes from its slumber and blazed a path across his mind.

The life.

Five hundred years of vivid red and blackness, five hundred years of torture, five hundred years of delusion, and a hundred years of whiteness.

As he is sickened by the monochrome around him, he begins to draw his surrounding.

He imagines the colors. Blue, yellow, green, purple, gold, maroon, pink, orange, and many more, he imagines them.

Now he can see the colors as he sits back and watches, presses his back to the gravestone and just watches as the color dancing within the light.

 

* * *

 

He sees Zerona. No, not see through the reflection of the lake like usual, he sees her directly with his eyes, his very eyes of his physical body. Though her image is blurry because the ice surrounding him, but he can tell it’s her by her voice. 

Wait a second, how did he get back into his body?

He is horrified. He flinches, waiting for the Calamity using this opportunity to attacking him.

But after waiting for he feels like an hour, the Calamity didn’t strike him.

Huh? It’s weird.

As his confusion elapses, he watches Zerona leaving him with a short goodbye and a promise to be back later.

And he snaps his eyes open, panting and short of breath with a flash of red and green drifting in his eyes.

It’s real or just another dream?

 

* * *

 

He never could back into his physical body after that. It’s not that he wants it, but he remembers that he should have get control of his body as it is a container for Calamity and he doesn’t want to take a risk for Calamity takes control of his body.

His thought is interrupted by some blinding light. He blinks, trying to rid the dizziness, and turns toward the light is.

“What are you doing there?” he asks as he watching the Goddess busy with something white, black, and green.

**_“Making some materia,”_ **

“Materia?”

**_“Marble with magic in it.”_ **

He doesn’t know how to react to her explanation. “And… why do you make that some… magic marbles?”

**_“Just for fun.”_ **

A sweat dropped on the back of his head at her answer. Sometimes he can’t understand her. Ah well, he shrugs, she is the Goddess so it’s natural for him to not understand her intention.

 

* * *

 

He grimaces, at yet another intrusion, another forced entry into his consciousness he could not fight.

The Calamity has broken him once, and he knows, deep down, that he has only half-mended, bitterness and anger hiding the fractures that has never completely healed.

_‘For the love of… just go away. Just leave me alone… please…’_

He presses his temple when he sees the Goddess talking with someone else he doesn’t know. Her guest looks like a devil, a dark skinned devil, its appearance muscular and bald with elongated ears and typical features of western demons such as horns, hooved feet and bat-like wings.

And when the devil caught him looking at it, he hears it scoffs like it’s mocking him.

A vein pops on his forehead.

He sees the demon disappears in greenish white light. The Goddess turns and raises her eyebrow at him.

“Who is the demon?”

An amused look has shown on her face at his annoyed tone. **_“He is The God of Discord, Chaos.”_**

God? That devil-looking son of a bitch is a god? It’s a joke, right?

“I don’t like him.”

She even looks more amused. **_“_ Everyone _does not like him. Well, not much.”_**

This time, it’s Zero who cocking an eyebrow. “It’s sad,” he comments.

The Goddess shrugs her shoulder. **_“He had been made that way, it is not his fault. And he had long accepted it anyway.”_**

And it’s more than sad to be created as a being that disliked by _everyone_. He now almost feels pity at the so called God. Well, **almost**.

“So,” he fidgets a bit. “Do you need something or what?”

She smiles a mischievous smile. **_“Are not you so eager to get rid of me?”_**

“Of course not,” he answers immediately. “It’s just…”

**_“I am joking, Zero. Relax.”_** She chuckles at his awkwardness. **_“But, yes, I have something to discuss with you.”_**

At this, Zero tentatively listening.

**_“Your brother,”_** Instantly, worry engulfs his heart. **_“He wants to see you one last time before he departs for the afterlife.”_**

He is surprised. “He has not gone yet?”

**_“The Calamity did not touch him, but he still could feel what you feel because your bond as twins. His soul did not damaged, but his mind affected. He just woke up, and he wants to see you.”_ **

Ichiru wants to see him? Of course, Zero wants to see his brother. He misses his twin brother so much, and he still feels guilty for killed him.

He nods as his answer, and the Goddess is gone with a smile.

The next time, he escorts his brother to the afterlife. Watching him disappears in green-white strands particles with a content smile tugged on his lips.

 

* * *

 

There are wails.

They are filled with sadness. They are filled with sorrow. They are filled with despair.

And the wailing has never stopped.

Do you know what’s worse than war?

Pestilence.

Plague like so much mushy gray ash and grease overhead and never stopping, never ceasing, endlessly falling to hold without regard and to carry away on gentle breath of silence.

But there is wailing in that silence.

And Zero watching with dread at what the reflection has shown to him after so long. The Cetra are falling, one by one, with something like a black plague but more deadly as it can kill the Cetra – the former supernatural creatures - who have high immunity in their body.

He turns at the Goddess behind him with pleading eyes. Silently asking her to do something with it. But the Goddess just shakes her head, saying that it is beyond her ability. Saying that this is something that is done by a being that much, much older than her.

Death and Fate.

And he cries and cries as he watches Zerona wailing to the sky with her sister’s cold body in her arms.

 

* * *

 

He greets them as if he has been waiting for them. He rises, his long hair sways along with his movement, strands brushing the white lilies gently, walking slowly toward the new souls who have strayed in his plane.

It has been so long time since the last time he met them.

“Hello, Ichijou-senpai, Shiki-senpai.”

Green and maroon eyes widen as they sees the man who approaching them.

“Ki… Kiryuu-kun…?” they ask in unison.

He nods as he gives them a small smile. Silence falls in awkwardness. They all stare at each other, scanning at the appearance.

“So…” Takuma coughs, breaking the silence. “This is the afterlife? It’s rather plain, isn’t it?” he jokes.

A chuckle lets out of Zero’s mouth. “No, this is the lifestream. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Lifestream?” Senri asks, blinking his eyes in confusion.

“The lifestream are bridges to the afterlife, like limbo.” Zero says.

Takuma raises his eyebrow. “You’re here, does that mean you’re coming to pick us up?”

An amused look has shown on Zero’s face. “Not really. You are stranded here and my duty is guide you to the afterlife.”

“Excuse me? _Stranded_?”

“This is **_my_** private plane of lifestream,” Zero answers simply. “You **are** stranded here instead going to the afterlife via another plane, and when the souls strayed here I’m the one who sent them to afterlife.”

Senri’s eyes widen. “What do you mean with _your_ plane? Aren’t you come with us to afterlife?”

A sad smile tugs on Zero’s lips. “I cannot die, Shiki-senpai,” he says, watching their eyes widen in surprise. “I also cannot live. I will drift in lifestream for eternally because of the Calamity.”

Both former level B vampires stare at him in shock, before an understanding has came over them.

Takuma coughs. “So, let’s chat before we depart to afterlife!” he says cheerily. “For the sake of old times.”

 

* * *

 

There is an earthquake.

His eyes widen as he feels a big tremor shaking his very being. He crashes to the flower bed, lying there while all around him shuddered and shook. There are bangs and shatters from the ruins he had made a few meters from where he is.

It’s an earthquake. A very large magnitude quake. But it’s impossible the earthquake occurs here, is it? Because this is **_lifestream_**. It doesn’t have corporeal ground.

What’s happened exactly?

A huge crash happened, and so loud it hurt his ears. He yelps and grabs the flower bed tightly, he sees a crack above him in the middle of whiteness, and fear engulfs him.

And then… silence.

He is tremble, watching the crack slowly mends itself and disappear like there’s nothing happened. His heart pounds so loud he can hear clearly in his ears, he slumped against the flower bed, feels weak and shook up.

There is a light shines brightly beside him. He takes a glance, and sees the Goddess standing there with a grim look on her face.

“What’s happened?” he rasped, his body still shaking from the earthquake.

**_“There is a sudden movement on all tectonic plates on the Planet.”_ **

“What do you mean with ‘sudden movement’?”

The Goddess doesn’t answer him, instead she coaxing him to follow her. She walks over the lake and stretches her hand. A reflection on something circle and blue appears on the surface.

It is Earth, the Planet.

His eyes widen of what has been shown to him. There is something strange about it, but he doesn’t know what. He narrows his eyes to find out what’s so strange. And when he found it, he gasps loud.

The lands layout has already changed. He scans the reflection carefully. He still remembers the map from the time he was alive, and the layout in the map and in the reflection in front of him are very different. There’s no way the Planet’s tectonic plates changed this drastically in just hundreds years.

It can’t be…

“A very large-scale movements in one time?” he asks in surprise.

The Goddess nods grimly. **_“It is happened sometimes, every million years. And when the Planet shifted in a large scale like this, the lifestream affected too.”_** She smiles in apologetic. **_“I am sorry for not warned you about this before. I do not have time.”_**

He is silent, doesn’t know what to respond as he never saw something like this before.

She smiles in understanding at him, before walking away from the lake. **_“I will be very busy after this, so I will not be able to come here for a while.”_**

Zero turns his head. “Busy?”

**_“This movement makes a lot of natural disasters happening on the Planet. Earthquakes, flooding, eruption, weather changes, climate changes, and many more. And we know exactly who will get damaged in the end, right?”_** She stares at Zero’s wide eyes. **_“There are deaths everywhere.”_**

The organisms on the Planet, of course. And did she say ‘death’ just now?

He makes a sharp turn toward the lake, changing the reflection with a quick flick. The reflection is displaying a long brown haired woman who has struggled between the ruins and shouts around her. He sighs in relief, she’s still alive, and it seems her husband and kids too. He flick his hand again, the reflection changes to display the Sanctuary, he grimaces when he saw only a few survivors there.

Well, at least Hanabusa Aido is still stubbornly alive and kicking in there to taking care Kanae’s children.

**_“There will be a surge of souls coming to the lifestream,”_** The Goddess says, interrupting his thought. **_“So, don’t be surprised if there are so many souls that will be stranded to this plane. And I want you to guide the souls back to afterlife like usual.”_**

 And with that, the Goddess leaves in the greenish white of lifestream.

 

* * *

 

Zerona has become a queen again. Zero amusedly watches the reflection. Ah, no, she is called _empress_ now, if he was not mistaken, in a nation called Wutai, a continent that once was Japan and China merged together because of the Planet’s sudden tectonic plate movement. Zerona is really her father’s child; calm, elegant, stoic, and authoritative individual. Her appearance is too alike Kaname, it’s like she is a gender bending of Kaname Kuran. He chuckles at the thought.

But still, there’s something about her that makes him unnerved.

It’s just… whenever she is with the people who are very close to her, she becomes a completely different person. And her personality is... very much like his.

So much it makes him unnerved.

Yet there is no resemblance between her and Yuuki, her own mother.

And her lavender eyes just make him more and more unnerved.

If he doesn’t know better, he would think that Zerona is Kaname’s and his daughter.

That’s absurd.

He blinks with the thought that come over him.

…or is it?

Is Yuuki secretly got his sperm or cells and inseminating her-pregnant-self, or what? Because he remembers clearly that he had never done sex with her.

Maybe, he should ask the Goddess about this the next time she comes here.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Zero never asks the Goddess about Zerona’s _parentage_ because he has **never** seen her since the tectonic plate movements.

He is worried.

So worried.

It’s the first time the Goddess doesn’t visit this plane in this long time. And Zero is worried. But then he just shrugs his worry when he remembered the Goddess said she couldn’t pay a visit here in very long time.

But, it’s been hundreds years in Earth since the tectonic plate movement.

Aw hell, Zero groans as he climbs on the flower bed, it’s not like there’s something that could become a danger for Minerva, she is a Goddess after all.

And so, he closes his eyes, trying to pull out any good memories he have and drowning in them with a warmth feel and happiness while he let the sandman cradles him into slumber. Little does he know there’s always something that could danger the Goddess, or rather the Planet itself.

 

* * *

 

A scream yanks him from his deep slumber.

Time loses all meaning within the darkness of sleep. It stretches, bends, twists until past and future reunite like lovers long lost.

How much time had passed since he was asleep?

He winces when that bloodcurdling scream has heard again and stabbing his ears.

It is a scream like nothing he has heard before. It tears through him and slices at his ears, the pain and anguish seeping into his very being. The agony is overwhelming.

Scream. Scream. Scream. Scream. Scream. **_Scream._**

Wail. Wail. Wail. Wail. Wail. Wail. Wail. **_Wail._**

Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry. Cry. **_Cry._**

He tries to cover his ears, but the scream is too great to muffle it. But this is not what makes him scared. What truly makes him scared is the familiarity of the voice, and though he has never heard her scream before, he knows precisely who it belongs to.

It’s the Planet’s. It’s the Goddess’ scream.


	5. The Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something found in the wall of ice.

 

 

Silence. Nothing but silence all around him.

Zero blinks, looking around him slowly. There is just a shrill screaming, and now suddenly everything is silent. He feels disoriented, his ears ringing loudly after the scream he has just heard.

But, though everything falls silent, he still scared.

The silence presses in on him, oppressive, as loud as a scream.

This kind of silence is not natural. He can sense that there is something _wrong_ , something that doesn’t quite fit. There is something happening here that beyond his ability to understand.

“Minerva?” he calls softly, a worry hanging above him.

Only silence answered him.

“Minerva?” he calls again, more loudly this time.

Still, just silence.

And dread engulfs him.

Minerva always answered him when he was calling.

“Minerva?!” he shouts.

The silence is overwhelming, all-consuming.

Oh, no, is something really happened to her?

There is a tug behind his mind. He brushes it, at first. But the tug is more and more persistent. Tugs and tugs and tugs. He grits his teeth. It’s ringing. It’s rough. It’s thunderous. And he never feels like this since he staying here in the lifestream.

What… is this?

Something strange happens. A queer wave separates from the Lifestream, rushing and shaking violently. It is an ominous wave like a great pulse.

He screams.

He is being drawn away by something, dragged as if he is caught by gravity, picking up speed as he drops. The pulse happens again, stronger than before.

And he disappears within the light of reddish green and black.

 

* * *

 

> _**“Every person is a project, God's project, I want to be the most profitable one.”** _
> 
> ― Amit Kalantri

 

* * *

 

 **Shinra Electric Power Company**. Despite popular belief, they began as a small weapons manufacturer known as Shinra Manufacturing Works. With impressive determination and dedication yet ambitious, Shinra made the crucial discovery how to refine Lifestream into something they called **Mako energy** as an electrical energy source. Mako energy proved itself to be a very promising investment and quickly gained a large amount of support within the consumer market. Shinra found itself with more and more influence and began to become the leading outlet of electrical power. They set up the construction of Mako Reactors all around the Planet, including small towns like Gongaga and Nibelheim, and were used to harvest the Mako energy from the Planet itself.

With their ever-increasing finances, they expanded into many areas, including space exploration. As people becoming dependent on Mako energy, President Shinra soon found himself a global aristocrat as such felt that it was necessary to expand further, thus the development of Shinra’s private army started.

And it all began when they got an ethically questionable desire to find ‘A Promised Land’ and to create a race of elite super soldier.

 

* * *

 

Doctor Gast Faremis wipes his temple with the back of his hand as he staring up at the scorching sun from the large hole he and other workers have been digging. Despite being so far north, all the hard work has him sweating profusely. He stares up at the sun, which looks so warm yet provided no heat for the all under it. The climate in Icicle Area is so cold it makes even the sun cry.

The air is thick with the smell of machine oil and grease, the only sound are the shouts from the worker and the continual humming of the generator. He sighs, picks his shovel and continued his slow, hard dig through the permafrost. He digs the patch of ice stubbornly, hoping he will find something sooner.

He has joined the Scientific Research Department at the Shinra Electric Power Company in the hopes of climbing the ladder of success. But after years failing to produce results in Mako research, he found himself being assigned to menial and unimportant excavation archeological projects. The projects he doesn’t even know what they are supposed to be looking for.

His thought is interrupted when his shovel stops abruptly in the wall of the hole. He mutters curses that even will make a sailor blushed as he tries to pull the shovel out. He groans when his shovel doesn’t budge at all.

Damn, it.

 _‘It must be another hell patch of ice,’_ he thinks, before he brings out a chisels and brushing the loose snow aside around the area where his shovel had stuck. It seems to be a rather large block of ice too, he groans aloud in frustration and feels like wanted to bang his head on the ice. At this rate, he will dig the same hole the rest of his life.

Then something in the ice caught his eyes, his eyes narrow as he leaning closer to examine it. _‘Wha… what the heck is that?’_ he blinks in wonder. He uses his chisels to clear more of the frozen earth away from it. His eyes widen when he sees a torso in it.

“Oh my fucking God…” he whispers.

He brushes away the snow with his hands to uncover more of the ice, the clearness striated with faintly glowing green veins of what he recognizes as Mako, but he set aside it. He turns to the other workers and shouting at them to help him. The only one he cares is the wall of ice with something in it, this is greater than any sample.

And so they dig and dig, thaw the patches with satchel and ice picks and chisels and shovels. Day and night, just stopping for breaks. It’s a big discovery, and they are so eager to dig it.

 “The fuck is this?” a worker said as they all staring up at the wall of ice. It has taken more than a week to clear the ice from dirt and snow, but Gast and the others had managed. And now here they are, staring in amazement at the block of ice that has something – someone – in it.

“I don’t know,” Gast replies, trying to hide the excited grin on his face. This is going to shoot him top of the ladder, okay. If he can get the specimen out, find out who or what it is, he can get funding or his own research facility and leave this bitter wasteland and drudge work behind.

He can become one of the greatest scientists in the Shinra’s… no… the Planet’s history. Awesome.

“Doctor Gast!!” A shout from other worker makes him turns. “We found something else here! Like a plate or something!”

A pure anticipation courses through Gast’s veins. He slowly walks through the snow toward where the worker is. And he gasps with awe and surprise when he comes across a dented, carved plate crusted on the permafrost. There’s something written there, with an unfamiliar font, it’s decorated and looks old and ancient.

Ancient?

It can’t be…

“Can you read it?” a worker asks.

Gast is silent. He used to do a research for the Ancients, but because there are a few sample and low budget, he halted his research for a while. And he could remember that there’s a data about their writing in his research journal.

“Wait a minute,” he says as he making a turn to grab his journal from his bag. He opens the book, and feels excited when he saw rows of Ancient’s writing with a bit of translation in it. It’s same! The writing is similar! He hurriedly back to where the plate is and begins to translate, tracing his fingers along the writing.

_‘Here lies Ze… Zeno… Jero… Zerokiri… Jenoka… Zerova…’_

The word has so worn by age he has difficulty to read it.

_‘…Jenova…’_

He blinks. Jenova? He tilts his head. Jenova… it’s a weird name. But, he shrugs, he has no right to comment it, the name could be quite common among the Ancient.

“What would you do with it?” the supervisor beside him asks as he pulls out a cigarette. Gast glances at him in surprise, but the supervisor just shrugs. “Well, you found it, so I guess you’re the one whose gotta figure out what to do with it.”

What will he do with it?

An excited smile tugs on his lips.

Of course…

“Please, lift it out. I would like to bring it back to Midgar.”

 

* * *

 

Gast wipes the sweats on his temple with his handkerchief, feeling anxious and nervous in anticipation, his foot tapping at a continual rhythm on the floor as he sits outside the Board Room, awaiting a crucial meeting with President Shinra. He tries to think how he will convince the President that he has uncovered – he believes – an Ancient.

After all, he wants to resume his halted project on Ancient.

“Doctor?” A short-skirted secretary pokes her head out of the Broad Room, snapping Gast out of his reverie. “The President will see you now.”

Adjusting his tie and wiping his cold, clammy palms off his lab coat, Gast takes a deep breath to steel his nerves before walking briskly through the set of heavy wooden doors.

“Doctor Gast, welcome,” the President says in a surprisingly friendly tone, gesturing him to sit on the chair across his desk. “Come in, come in. I’m eager to hear this breakthrough you wrote to me about.”

“Why yes, sir. I believe I’ve made a discovery that could really propel not only the scientific field but all of Shinra Incorporated into a whole new position as a company.” He begins calmly.

He cheers inside when he saw the President’s eyes widen in intrigued. “Oh, do tell.”

“Yes, sir. Well, you see, the specimen I uncovered in Icicle Area may, in fact, be… an Ancient.” Gast drops the bomb.

The silence covers the room in a thick, oppressive blanket as the President stares at him in disbelief.

“An… an Ancient, you say? Do you have any proof of this, Gast?”

Gast inhales deeply. “Well, sir, a worker found a carved plate near where the specimen has found. There’s something written in it in a character that similar with the Ancient characters I had researched once. We, of course, don’t know what these Ancient looked like, but we had digging more after that, and we found ruins of pillars and walls, and the test proved that the soil samples date it to…”

“Very good, Professor Gast, very good, this is indeed remarkable!” President Shinra exclaims, interrupting him. “Yes, I believe this matter warrants further investigation. Tell me… what do you know of Mako energy, you worked on the development of the energy program for awhile didn’t you?”

“Er, yes, sir,” Gast replies with an awkward cough to clear his throat. “I know Mako is a seemingly abundant source of energy harvested from the ground…”

“Yes, our Energy Department is currently working on building a set of Mako reactors to harvest more of this energy and see if it can be converted to electricity. But you see, in order for the program to really take off, we need to find a much larger source of Mako. We would have to build many more reactors in order to see any real results otherwise. Now, you seem to be something of an expert on the Ancients, so tell me, have you ever heard of The Promised Land?”

Gast is taken aback by such a strange question, and fails to see what it had to do with Mako. Promised Land? He just read it in a book and thought it is just a myth as there’s no proof that it existed, but if it led to him getting funding for his experiments, he’d take a shot at it. “I… I believe, if I remember correctly that is, that this is what the Ancients were tried to reach or achieve in their communications with the Planet?”

The President nods. “You see Gast, I believe that if the Ancients were so close to the Planet as legend would have us believe, that this ‘Promised Land’ might contain an abundance of Mako energy. For this reason I am giving your project top priority. If, as you say, this specimen is really an Ancient, perhaps it can lead us to the Promised Land, and therefore, to profit. Who knows, Gast, you may even become head of the Scientific Research Department!” he says with a wide, greedy smile on his piggish face. Gast is absolutely dumbfounded. Does the President really believe this Promised Land existed? But this thought is quickly erased by the prospect of becoming head of the department. Now that will be a dream come true…

“So, will you accept that as part of your objective, Professor? If your finding is indeed an Ancient, I can promise you all the funding you would need to find a way of making it profitable to the company.”

“Oh, yes, sir, definitely. I believe my theory will prove correct, and if so, we will find a way of using the Ancient to the Promised Land.” He says. ‘ _That's right, Gast, just tell him what he wants to hear… compromise your ideals for the sake of research and_ _funding,’_ his conscience quips.

“Well then, what will your project be called?”

Gast thinks about it for a moment, before a name he had found in the site crosses in his mind.

“The JENOVA Project.”

 

* * *

 

Doctor Gast, now ‘Professor’ Gast, steps in to his newly appointed private laboratory and looks around the room in all its brilliant sterility. President Shinra has been so intrigued by his discovery and has promoted him, given him funding, and provided him with everything he would need to study his specimen. Gast is so excited by this, as he finally able to resume his research on Ancient, and with a solid sample in boot.

 _‘Well, better get to work now,’_ he thinks as he takes a notebook from the table.

He enters the room where the specimen has kept, and let out a professional smile to his assistants. “How is it going?” he asks. His assistants are young, eager to work and full of ideas, especially the male one.

Hojo Crescent is looking back from his notebook. “The specimen has been thawed,” he says, while writing something on his note. “And is being stored in a saline solution that kept at constant thirty degrees. So far, no sign of deterioration have been detected.”

Gast takes the tray of instruments from his female assistant next to him. Lucrecia Crescent, Hojo’s wife, is a brilliant woman. He heard about her project with a scientist named Grimoire Valentine, and intrigued by the concept. He wants to ask her about it, but that is for later, now he has his own project to work on.

“We will begin series of Mako treatments to see if specimen is, in any way, still viable,” Gast says as he pushes a button to drain the solution, he picks one of the instruments from the tray and walks over the specimen to retrieve samples for studying.

He stares in amazement when he sees the creature inside the tank. It’s not quite like human, Gast notes, it is humanoid in shape but its skin is a pale translucent pink and webbed with blue veins. There are large membranous wings on its back, large and crusty, and Gast couldn’t imagine how the creature could actually use them to fly. He moves his gaze toward its face, compared to its body, the face is strikingly human. It looks feminine, slender and… beautiful. The features are delicate, and it has serene expression on its face as though it’s merely asleep.

Bringing himself back to the task at hand, Gast turns to make sure Hojo is ready to assist him. The assistant is also staring at the specimen, but with a distracted look, Gast had seen that look once on the people who had a moment. Gast eyed his assistant in curiosity, before shakes his head and brushing his fleeting concerns away as ridiculous.

“The body is in good, remarkably good, condition,” Lucrecia begins while looking at her notebook. “Earlier tests on rock samples found around the specimen dated it to be around two thousand years old. And from the shape of its body, we assumed it’s a female. Further research is necessary to determine species.”

Gast collects a few samples from the creature, silently apologizes to the creature for touching without permission. He puts the samples into the tubes and tray, carefully to not contaminate the creature, before he walks out and closing the door to the cylinder.

“Professor,” Hojo says as Gast refills the tank with the Mako solution. “I notice something strange about the specimen.” His eyes gleam excitedly. “Set aside its appearance, of course,” he quickly adds when Gast raising his eyebrow.

“Go on,” Gast says.

“I notice when we thawed the specimen, there was a large scratch on the side of its neck.”

Gast blinks. “Really?” he says in surprise. “I’m certainly not aware of it. Where is it again? Point it out to me.”

“That’s just it, Professor,” Hojo says, looking agitated. “The scratch isn’t there anymore. It’s disappeared, healed.”

Gast’s eyes widen, he is now more intrigues by this. A wide smile tugs on his lips as he clapping his assistant on the back, makes the man chocked.

“This is amazing! Good work, Hojo! Do you have any idea what this means?” Gast says excitedly.

Hojo quickly gets his composure back. “Some idea, I believe,” he replies calmly.

Gast grins at him. “It means this specimen could be still alive!! And not only that, it might have regenerative properties! We’ll have to look into this further!” He then glances at the clock on the computer. “Well, not today, though. It’s time to go home, and I must go to the library to see if I can find some information of it anyway.”

“I’d be happy to assist you in your research, Professor Gast,” Lucrecia says softly, securing her brown hair in its usual ponytail.

“Thank you, Lucrecia,” Gast says with a smile. “And how about you, Hojo? Would you like to come with us?”

Hojo shakes his head. “If you’d like, Professor. But, can I stay and clean up here first? There’s something I need to check.”

Gast wonders what he would check, but he shrugs and claps the man on his shoulder. “Well, don’t take too long, okay? I would like to drop in to the mess room to grab some snacks first before go to the library, do you want something?”

Hojo lets a small smile out on his lips. “No, but thank you, Professor.”

“Well, suit yourself,” Gast says, patting his assistant's shoulder one more time, before he begins to walk toward the door.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Lucrecia asks worriedly. “You didn’t eat at lunch today.”

“No, I’m sure,” Hojo says with a soft smile.

“I will buy a light food for you,” Hojo just opens his mouth to protest when Lucrecia gives him a glare. “Don’t argue with me. As your wife, I’m worried about your health.”

Hojo sighs as he presses his glasses. “Okay, whatever you want.”

Lucrecia gives him a quick kiss on his cheek, before she runs out to catch up Gast.

As soon as she has gone, Hojo turns off the lights. Darkness engulfs with only the faint green glow of Mako in the tank fills the room. Hojo turns, staring at the creature with a wistful look. His fingers are gently trailing along the glass that separates him and the Mako tank where the specimen is.

“Why do I feel like I have seen you before, Jenova?”

 

* * *

 

Gast wipes the sheen of sweats from his brow, adjusting the table lamp so that more light is directed onto the large book in front of him. Around him on his desk and on the floor are scattered numerous other books and files, ranging from scientific classifications of animals and extinct species to ancient myths and legends.

 _‘There’s must be something inside one of these books,’_ he reasons. _‘Must be a clue as to what this strange specimen is.’_      

At this moment, he is having a particularly hard time translating an ancient volume on an extinct humanoid species who had called themselves ‘Cetra’, which is roughly translated as Ancients. For a long time, their existence had been regarded as a myth, complete with rumors of a magnificent lost city, but several years ago his friend, an archeologist, had discovered several old scrolls and books in an unknown language with characters similar to Wutainese. And with Gast’s help, it had taken years of works to translate the scrolls, but they are now believed to be accounts written by the Ancients themselves and proof that this powerful race beings had really once existed, though some still claimed they could merely be fictional accounts themselves.

“Professor, I think I found something,” a female voice says. Gast glances toward Lucrecia who laid an old book down to his desk. “In this book says about Cetra and something called… Calamity, if I’m not mistaken.”

 _‘Calamity?_ ’ Gast thought in wonder. _‘Where I have heard about it before?_ ’

He moves his attention to the book. “Hana… busa… Aido…” he reads the back of the cover aloud, it seems the writer is someone named Hanabusa Aido. Turning the tattered yellowing pages of book, his fingers are tracing the characters as he goes. “Cetra… frozen in an iceberg… war… lost in… earth?”

The book pages have been so fragmentary that even many characters could not be read because they had become faded or obscured by stains.

 “Maybe it’s about the specimen,” Lucrecia says when she heard his translation. “‘A Cetra that frozen in an iceberg lost in earth’, maybe that’s what is written in this book.”

 _‘A Cetra…?’_ Gast thought in amazement. Indeed, the creature he had found was encased in protective ice and Mako. The creature he had found is really an Ancient! More than that, it’s an actual Cetra!

This… this is something.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, chapter 4 is done!
> 
> Yeah… you must be thinking “Why the hell is Hojo so normal and loving?” now.
> 
> I never think he is evil since born, must be something had triggered him into evilness and craziness. And so… I made him a normal, intelligent scientist yet emotionally stunted that loved his wife so much but become evil and crazy because of a ‘trigger’ (it’s spoiler, so don’t ask what ‘the trigger’ is). He’s still quite young in this fic, you know, around early twenties, and just married with his beloved wife.
> 
> And I imagine how Hojo when he was still young, based on how Sephiroth look, if Hojo was really his biological father. (There’s no way Hojo was ugly when he’s younger if he had THE Sephiroth as his biological child. Just… no way.)
> 
> I happened found a picture about how Hojo when he’s young : www. zerochan. net /1403104 (just delete the space)


End file.
